Q: The AWU Workplace Reform Association had the AWU name in it and you knew it was not a workplace safety association; in fact, the slush fund phrase was your own phrase in that transcript. So were you a party to a deception against the union?

PM: There has been an emerging kind of consensus amongst the media, perhaps egged on by the opposition, that I need to give a full and frank account of these matters. Let me just remind you, I first answered these matters on the public record in 1995 when they were raised by a Liberal Party minister.

I refer you to my answers in the marathon press conference in August where I explained to you that I acted on clients’ instructions, that in terms of the use of the words ‘slush fund’ I said very specifically, I did not think that that helped with the understanding of this matter, that my understanding on the instructions provided by my clients was that this was an association which would support the re-election of union officials running on a particular platform of change, hence its name.

Q: One of the allegations made by Ralph Blewitt is that the power of attorney here, which you witnessed, you weren’t actually present when it was witnessed. I think he told Michael Smith as recently as October that he can remember signing it or thereabouts on 4 February and yet it was dated 23 February. So were you there to witness this power of attorney?

PM: I’ve said publicly on more than one occasion I did nothing wrong, and I did nothing wrong in the witnessing of this power of attorney. I witnessed thousands and thousands and thousands of documents for clients during an eight-year – I’ll answer your question – I witnessed thousands and thousands of documents over an eight-year legal career for clients and I did that witnessing properly.

So it’s going to come down to Mr Blewitt’s word against me.

Let me remind you who Mr Blewitt is. Mr Blewitt is a man who has publicly said he was involved in fraud. Mr Blewitt is a man who has sought immunity from prosecution.

Mr Blewitt is a man who has fled Indonesia to avoid a police interview in relation to land fraud, although he denies wrongdoing in the case. Mr Blewitt says he owes money on another Asian land deal.

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Mr Blewitt admits to using the services of prostitutes in Asia. Mr Blewitt has published lewd and degrading comments and accompanying photographs of young women on his Facebook page.

Mr Blewitt, according to people who know him, has been described as a complete imbecile, an idiot, a stooge, a sexist pig, a liar, and his sister has said he’s a crook and rotten to the core. His word against mine, make your mind up.

Q: You’ve described [the AWU] association as fairly routine. Is Bill Shorten then wrong in saying it was inappropriate, unauthorised and out of bounds?

PM: Well I refer you to that interview by Bill Shorten where he says he’s crystal clear about my conduct, and crystal clear that I engaged in no wrongdoing. What he was talking about 17 years later, 20 years later, after all of this is on the public domain, is the AWU view of those transactions.

Q: Can I ask you about a report about Mr Wilson putting $5000 into your account? Can you remember that happening and do you know what it was for?

PM: I’m happy to address that but let me say this about that claim. On the day that claim came out publicly I referred to it as smear because it is a matter associated with my personal life. And whilst I’m going to answer your question, I just ask you for one moment to assume that that is true, that $5000 was put in my bank account by a person I was then in a relationship with, who the witness involved said had had a big night out at the casino. Can you piece together for me the personal wrongdoing involved in that? I doubt you can.

I do not – to the best of my knowledge – I do not remember $5000 being put in my bank account. Across most of my working life, my engagement with ATM machines has been like everybody’s else’s, you get a surprise on the downside when you put your card in and check your account balance, not a surprise on the upside. However, it is a long time ago. And so I have taken steps to try and check. I specifically made inquiries of the Commonwealth Bank. They have advised me it is not possible to get records from 17 years ago.

I had hoped to be in a position to produce my bank records to help verify recollections here but I cannot be put in that position because the records are not available.

Q: In August you said that the money for the renovations on your house you paid for, you’re quite clear on that. In the statement from 1995 you seem to leave some doubt or area of possibility that perhaps there might have been some other supply that went in towards the renovation on your house, that was closer obviously to the time, of the 1995 statement. Can you explain why you are so emphatic and certain that you paid for everything now?

PM: I refer you to the Slater & Gordon transcript and what I say on that transcript is that I’d spent some time on the weekend trying to look through my receipts about my renovations. Subsequent to that interview with Slater & Gordon I spent more time getting my receipts together and adding it up and thinking about it. And having done so at the time, which I did in 1995, I am confident that I paid for the renovations on my home, and I did it in the way in which people normally do it.

I did things like extend my mortgage, I renovated over time.

Can I just, and this is a bit frustrating with all of these matters, if anybody has a piece of evidence that says I knowingly received money to which I was not entitled for my renovations, please feel free to get it out. If anybody’s got it, it’s only been 20 years.

Q: Did you reimburse anybody for your renovations?

PM: No, no I did not. And I’ve been dealing with this allegation over the best part of two decades as well.

Q: Just going back to the specific power of attorney which was mentioned a little bit earlier. It says on this, signed, sealed and delivered by Ralph Blewitt with his signature underneath. It says then witnessed by you. Did you see him sign this document?

PM: As I said in answer to the earlier question, I witnessed thousands of documents across an eight-year legal career for clients. I can’t point you to the moment in time and the decor of where I was sitting when I signed this one, but I witnessed documents in my legal career for clients properly and you are talking about a contest here between me and Mr Blewitt, and you can work out who you believe: the person who is standing here, Prime Minister of Australia who has done nothing wrong, or the man who says he’s guilty of fraud and is looking for an immunity. Work it out.

Q: Did you or did anyone connected directly or indirectly speak to Bruce Wilson before he made his comments at the weekend and why do you think he chose this time?

PM: Look I’m not a mind reader and no I didn’t speak to him.

Q: You said that you didn’t know about the association accounts and so forth, the transfer of money, but did you have a duty to the AWU in August 1995 to at least tell them that the association existed? Would that not have been useful information for them at that point in time?

PM: The existence of the association was known to two office bearers of the AWU by definition. At that time in August 1995 I didn’t have anything before me which would suggest that the association’s accounts had been misused in any way. What is it that you are suggesting I would have told the AWU that they could not have otherwise known? I didn’t have bank account numbers, this is the common slip here with reporting made on more than one occasion by news outlets and on more than one occasion apologised for as a defamation, which it is. I had no dealings with the bank accounts of the association.

Q: How confident are you that you never inadvertently received any money, benefit, gifts from Mr Wilson or anyone else that may have originated in this fund that we’re discussing and if you are confident, given that you can’t check your records thoroughly, how can you be confident?

PM: Nothing happened in the course of my relationship with Mr Wilson [in terms of who paid for what] that you would say was in any way unusual for people in a relationship.

I’ve done everything I could to check the $5000 – it’s not capable of being checked with this remove of time – so there was nothing that happened which would lead me to conclude that there was somehow lots of money around or lots of benefits around that somehow I couldn’t explain.

Q: If indeed you did know of the mortgage and you’d just forgotten, what would be the big deal in [Ralph Blewitt] being given a mortgage through Slater &Gordon?

PM: Couldn’t have put it better myself. Thank you, Andrew. What is the big deal? Anybody got any contention about how Ralph Blewitt getting a Slater & Gordon mortgage goes to any conduct by me, or any assertions of wrongdoing? What is the big deal?

Q: Prime Minister, can I just ask, do you have any regrets about your handling of this matter at all and will you now release the full transcript of your exit interview from Slater & Gordon?

PM: I don’t have the full transcript of my exit interview from Slater & Gordon. I don’t think anybody’s got it. As I understand it, it was redacted because of issues associated with a legal professional privilege, and so you’d have to deal with all of that and they’re not matters for me.

In terms of all of these years later, of course I would prefer that I wasn’t standing here today taking questions like this and we were talking about the National Disability Insurance Scheme and education.

But we could be in that position, if the political strategy of the opposition wasn’t about sleaze and smear, but it was about issues of substance for the nation’s future.

What I can confidently say is I did nothing wrong. And these things have been cycled and recycled and re-recycled and re-recycled over 20 years. I did nothing wrong.